


to be alone with you

by seularen



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seularen/pseuds/seularen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>and those who expected lightning and thunder are disappointed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to be alone with you

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 
> 
> On the day the world ends  
> A bee circles a clover,  
> A Fisherman mends a glimmering net.  
> Happy porpoises jump in the sea,  
> By the rainspout young sparrows are playing  
> And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
> 
> On the day the world ends  
> Women walk through fields under their umbrellas  
> A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,  
> Vegetable peddlers shout in the street  
> And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,  
> The voice of a violin lasts in the air  
> And leads into a starry night.
> 
> And those who expected lightning and thunder  
> Are disappointed.  
> And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps  
> Do not believe it is happening now.  
> As long as the sun and the moon are above,  
> As long as the bumblebee visits a rose  
> As long as rosy infants are born  
> No one believes it is happening now.
> 
> Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet,  
> Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,  
> Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:  
> No other end of the world there will be,  
> No other end of the world there will be.  
> \--Czeslaw Milosz, Warsaw 1944

    “Y’know, you don’t even _eat_ tomatoes,” he grumbled as he woke.

    “This is the thirty-fifth time you have made that observation.”

    “Hmm.” He pushed the soles of his feet a little harder against the dirt. “You forgot to factor time into your little statistic there.” The birds chirped in response and Leonard attempted a smirk. That’s what he thought.

    “That’s what I thought,” he said, unable even with age to keep his opinion to himself.

     “If you’d prefer, I could cease growing them.” Classic escalation. Len, even as shook up as he was, had to admire the perfectly balanced proportional response. Sometimes he wondered if Spock missed applying that tactical mind to a purpose bigger than tomato plants. Well, he’d have the opportunity soon enough, if his own body kept—the thought got pushed aside with a scowl.

    “How’d I make tomato soup then? And don’t insult me and say the replicator.” He didn’t have to see Spock’s face to know the smirk lurking in the corners of his lips. Len smiled slow, smug possessor of all the time in the world. It was a kinder feeling than the one he’d abandoned in dreams. “You and your kind are the pickiest eaters in the galaxy. I’ve seen you when you eat replicator food. It’s like watching Jim choke down his ego in the presence of superiors.”

    “That is hardly fair to Jim,” Spock demurred. “From all accounts he is far too professional to choke.”

    Leonard guffawed, startling the birds from their perch. The burst of sunshine roused him from his chair, teetering uneasily before gravity propelled him forward through the growth.

    “Leonard—” Spock’s height allowed him to see over the crops, and he spotted Len’s foolishness right away. In an instant cool fingers grasped at Len’s elbow, keeping him steady. It was appeasement, a mark against Spock for his momentary lapse of sympathy in their continuing power struggle.

    “I’m _fine_ , damnit. I’m not some invalid. I can still walk, y’know.” Spock knew the words held no venom, only the last of his pride. The feeling was quite unnecessary: no other sentient being lived within a mile of them. There was no one to be proud for. But Spock knew Leonard surrounded himself with ghosts, and chose to respect this singularly human flaw. He allowed himself to reminisce on past occasions when Leonard would never have conceded, able to hold Spock's show of emotion as a personal victory instead of forced to accepting the help. But time had been cruel to them both.

    “You are not fully functional, Leonard. Please allow me to assist y…” Len swung his head around to glare sardonically at him. Spock constantly marveled at how precise Leonard’s non-verbal communication was; one could hear his voice clearly even though he did not speak. Leonard’s face, too, showed approximately 15.7% more distinct expressions than the average human. Quite the _rara avis_ , Spock mused affectionately.

    “I… apologize. Those were, on reflection, words that may have implied callousness.”

    “You can say that again,” Leonard muttered, leaning cautiously into arms they knew could support him ten times over. He was determined to make the trip, then.

    “Repeating myself would in no way alter the sentiment,” Spock said, giving him a ‘taste of his own medicine,’ as he believed the phrase went. The distance between the chair and their tomatoes took forty seconds longer than they had yesterday, the fifth day of decreasing speed. He did not comment on the trend, for he knew Leonard was far too aware. Further emphasis was not required.

    “They’re lookin’ healthy,” Leonard said, examining the vine. Carefully, he dropped to a knee so he could pull out the few errant weeds Spock had yet to dig from the ground. The soil felt good under his palm. “You’ve been making sure to get the roots? They’ll just grow back if you don’t.”

    “Yes, Leonard.”

    “Don’t take that tone with me. It’s _my_ garden,” Len said as he dug. “I have to know it’s in good hands.” He looked up at Spock, relaxed for the first time since he woke. “Well, are you just going to stand there? C’mere and help.” They fell into companionable silence, clearing the small patch of any offending undergrowth. If his hands were busy, Len found he could gain a few moments of peace.

    A bee hovered near the roses, and Len contemplated what he should make for dinner tonight. The eggplant needed to be used before it went bad, and he still had that goat cheese Spock came back with after he'd disappeared last Tuesday. Stuffed eggplant and tomato, that wouldn't be so bad. An hour or so on his feet would do his circulation good, and not even Spock could call it risky. Besides, now they’d been used his hands itched to be useful again, dormant far too long in this environment. His cooking wasn’t near what he remembered from his childhood, but Spock knew even less about it than he so the standards were low.

    A part of him marveled at just how easy it was to come back, to fall into routines he’d kept as a boy. He’d half expected Jim’s wanderlust to spread like a particularly virulent case of Andorian shingles. There’d been a time when they’d forced him—and the rest of the Enterprise Five—into early resignation. That’d been the term on the newsfeeds anyway. If anyone got Len started on it, he’d throw around words like “heinous oversight” and “fucking typical bureaucracy.” But that’d sorted itself in the end, and after the harrowing experience of not having a purpose Len hadn’t been eager to abandon his post.

     But nearly a hundred years passed between then and now. Now, the most he thought about active duty was trying to remember how to refer to the cadets to whom he wrote. How the sneaky bastard found him was still a mystery, and why he'd come in the first place-- Len didn't even bother thinking about it. He knew he'd never get a straight answer from a Vulcan.

    He would, if given the excuse of one too many drinks, admit that he missed Starfleet. But retiring had been his idea, and one of his best; at least now he no longer worried about losing what little he had left.

    Not to unnatural causes, anyway.

    “Something has upset you,” Spock murmured, not quite derailing his thoughts so much as enforcing them.

    “Just the usual,” Len dismissed, digging his fingers forcefully into the earth. Let him be of use here. With the time remaining, let him create again instead of destroying as they so often had when they were young. "No, look," he said, pushing Spock's hand away from the little plant, "you broke the root. It'll just grow back if you leave it like that." He scooped up the dirt, shaking the miniature root system free and showering flecks of earth on them both.

    “Spock,” he finally asked when he found his voice again, “do you ever regret leaving Starfleet?” He didn’t expect an answer.

\---

_the world is scorching, and this place is death; the darkness of the world tempered only by the piles of burning bodies, and he can’t even find the strength to mourn them because he knows it's better than being alive; every native still breathing has been tortured, brutalized, raped—_

_the world is quiet and he’s holding a gun in his hand, Jim next to him silently gesturing them forward but Bones can’t move; his limbs are frozen and for the first time he’s grateful, but then he has to watch Jim and Spock move around the building without him, leaving him behind; and he’s still hiding, an unforgivable coward, when he hears the first bullets fired and oh god his friends, what if they're—_

    His body jerked awake, nearly sending him to the floor. He felt reverberations through his body, hands pressed palms-down on the mattress and sweat soaking through cotton. He looked around wildly, searching as adrenaline made him nauseous. Muscles tensed to flee somewhere safe, his body still not comprehending its new reality.

    It took him almost a minute to orient himself, but his heart did not slow; the nightmares made him question all he could not see. Finally, _finally_ , his eyes found their refuge, and he sighed, swinging his legs to dangle over the bed as he massaged the quivering away.

    "There is water, if you require it," his companion said from the chair near the window. Maybe it was the curtain's doing, but morning light had a peculiar effect on Spock. The gray in his hair still confused Leonard when he forgot to expect it. But it was the smudges of purple under his eyes that made Spock look his true age. They were similar in that way, at least, but it wasn't a trait Len particularly wanted to share.

    "No," he growled, voice rough; he tried to cough the fear from his throat. "No, I'm fine."

    "Of course." Spock betrayed nothing, which was his way. After so many years, Leonard didn't think they could keep secrets from each other. Each morning, he was proven wrong. And mornings like this were the hardest, he found: the taste of war still acrid in his mouth, he had little patience with which to recognize their _jus in bello_.

    Leonard was tired of being a soldier, caught in the flashbacks of games in which he had been nothing but a pawn. He was tired to the bone of being unable to escape no matter how well he hid himself. Every time he should have died, every time he lived through at the expense of others-- it was a weight he longed to be rid of.

    Coming home was supposed to've fixed that.

    "I'm going outside," he announced. It was a horrible idea, and he could feel his body already protesting, but Len simply didn't give a damn. Right now, he needed a physical reminder he was on Earth, safe from everything but his memories.

    Spock, by some miracle, refrained from commenting, only left his book on the chair and shut the door quietly behind him.

\---

    Mornings were solitary in their tiny house. He’d never thought to buy one with more than one bedroom; at the time, Len hadn’t exactly expected visitors. By nature, Len wasn’t a solitary man. It struck him as odd, then, how often the only two being for miles spent most of their time avoiding each other. Of course, the whole damn situation was odd—had been from the start.

    Around the time he’d buckled and helped Spock import soil from New Vulcan, the realization finally hit: something had gone very wrong for him along the line. Leonard McCoy was above all a family man, a man who lived for others and defined himself by his emotional connections. Yet here he was, living for his tomato plants and the isolating Vulcan who tended them.

_But I wanted this_ , was the refrain repeating in his head daily. Leonard wasn’t much for running, but looking back he knew he would have chosen this even if he hadn’t been given such motivation. _And hell_ , he thought as the last of the night’s shadows left him, _between the two of us we’re doin’ pretty well. All things considered_.

    Len grunted as he moved to get dressed, eager not to waste daylight. As often as he was able, Leonard spent his time outside. Decades, more than he enjoyed thinking about, he’d survived out in the black with nothing but artificial light and holovids to remind him of home. Whoever designed Len, be it God or the unholy union of biology and luck, hadn’t thought much of making him adaptable.

    Len pulled out the uniform of a farmer, his threadbare flannel and dirt-stained jeans serving him infinitely better than the cotton-confined monstrosity that was a Starfleet uniform. Starfleet designed their system to be impersonal and autonomous, until each member was a perfectly functioning cog in the machine—a machine that produced progress and peace, certainly, but a machine nevertheless. _Spock would certainly take issue with calling me a machine_ , he thought with a smirk as he pulled his shirt on. No, Leonard considered himself far too simple for that, especially now. Most days he could condense his needs down to a short list of three, and good old sunlight always made that list.

    Leaving his room, Leonard avoided the left side of the hall entirely and went to make himself breakfast. They’d silently divided the house into more or less equal parts: Spock had long-since taken over the sunroom with his experiments and occupied the den’s couch for what little sleep he required. Len, if he couldn’t get outside, stuck to the bedroom and kitchen. When he needed to send edited papers back to the Academy, he’d venture into the living room—the only room they shared. It was more a museum than anything else, a sad accumulation of the meager possessions they’d kept from their travels. That’s where they spent evenings, reading in silence and occasionally bickering over shared passages or stray thoughts.

     _Doin’ alright for ourselves_ , Leonard tried to assure himself, but it depended on the day whether the sentiment held any real conviction. He lived in an emotional warzone with a creature who couldn’t even feel on the same level as him. How that particular paradox came to exist, Len dared not think about; nostalgia no longer comforted him as it had on the Enterprise. Now it stung like cutting his hand while slicing lemons, the juice already soaked into his skin and burning all the more.

    Breakfast consisted of a bloody Mary, a poached egg, and three pieces of bacon, all of which he took outside with him. Retiring meant he no longer gave a damn, and threw caution to the winds; it was just about the most freeing thing he’d ever experienced.

    When he’d still been able to lift more than a stack of PADDs, Leonard had positioned a second rocking chair at the edge of the back field by the tomato vines. When he sat the crops towered over him, obscuring everything but green stems and blue Kentucky skies. In that quiet idyllic bubble, nothing existed but him and whatever shapes he saw in the clouds.

    His chair was where he headed now, pretending not to be shaken by the forms his dreams took and the places his mind wandered.

     It was a long walk for him, those few hundred feet; long enough that, once there, he was hesitant to rise again for anything but an emergency. If the day was a fine one, like today, he might guilt Spock into bringing him a whisky and savor it while catching up on medical journals and idly wondering why he wasn’t dead yet. It was a damn good thing Spock couldn’t read his mind from a distance. He disturbed Len enough with his uncanny ability to appear whenever Len wanted him least—like this morning, seeing Leonard vulnerable yet again. Len had been looking for weaknesses in Spock since they’d met. Hoping for cracks in the armor, to see something he could finally relate to. It was more than just their constant argument of emotion versus logic; the points had long since been abandoned in that exchange. The stakes were higher now, a game Leonard didn’t quite understand beyond the fact that he was playing.

    Leonard always found himself a disadvantage, these days. Even now, as he balanced the plate in his hand and made it down the back steps without incident, he knew in a moment he’d see the pointy-eared bastard come to watch over him like a mother hen. Whatever game they _were_ playing, Len knew he was losing. There were just too many questions he couldn’t begin to answer, and he knew he’d never be so lucky to receive a straight answer from a Vulcan. But at least Len still had the element of surprise on his side; his unpredictability threw an amusing wrench in Spock’s careful calculations. It was cold comfort, but he always took what he could get.

    As the sun properly situated itself above them, Spock watched Len’s slow progress through the field. He stood unmoving on the porch, a tall beacon of worry that made Len dizzy with resentment. Len retreated into the tall grass, his sanctuary in a world where nothing but safety surrounded him.

    Once he finally reached the chair, he carefully lowered himself down trying not to spill his precariously balanced food. Every movement was an effort, but he relished the challenge under the loving warmth of the sun. There was nothing to stop him from smiling here, from enjoying the simple act of _being_. Spock had once, a long time ago, tried to join him with a chair of his own. But Len couldn’t relax when his companion sat there like a piece of scrap metal abandoned in the tallgrass. Surrounded by nature, the last thing he wanted was to be reminded of space.

     For all their opposition, however, Len had to admit (if only to himself) that of all the peace he felt here, nothing compared to watching Spock tend to the tomatoes. Spock didn’t know it, but he looked very human while he focused on the simple little plants. From his chair, Leonard could see every flicker of emotion on Spock’s usually impassive face. It was more than a victory—it was a redemption for the both of them. Len didn’t dare bring it up; the brief moment of smugness weighed nothing compared to sitting back in his chair while Spock tended every leaf with the care he might show while introducing a volatile chemical into a new environment.

     _And if that isn’t a metaphor for our relationship_ , Leonard thought with a lazy grin. The cries of the birds made him giddy with contentedness, and it was easy to drift off again with the sun warming him.

_he sees familiar faces but this is not a surprise, they’re always here… Jim and Angela and Chris and Tonia, the people he loves, and the crew, whose blood he’s had on his hands and whose lives he cherishes… yes, they’re all here for a flash of a second before things dive downsofardown down into a focused pinpoint of light_

_he passes all his memories like a discontent traveler on the road, searching for that which he cannot define; he knows this is where his dream is going, and he doesn’t want it to but there’s no stopping it, for that is the way of dreams and the ship is empty_

_the ship is empty, at least that’s what they think at first; then their tricorders all go haywire at once but it’s far too late: the scorpion-like creatures are swarming from their nest, and there's nothing they can do but run, run for their goddamn lives, one of them screaming at Scotty while the others try their best not to get stung;_

_the crunch of exoskeletons underneath their boots fills Bones' ears like blood but he can still hear the exact moment when the things get Thompson, only he can't turn around and help, he can't or he'll die just like Thompson is dying; blood will be on his hands but at least it won't be his own (that's what Jim will tell him later) and he needs to survive this, he's not going to die out here, he can't, he won't, he--_

\---

    "Spock, do you ever regret leaving Starfleet?"

    He hadn’t expected an answer, and Spock’s voice nearly made him start. Instead, he pruned with a little more viciousness than absolutely necessary.

    “Regret is an emotion elicited when one feels they made the objectively wrong decision. As all my decisions were logically justified at the time of making them, I see no purpose in feeling regret.”

    For some reason, that was the last damn straw.

    “Look, you goddamn abacus—” he heard his voice hitch with emotion as he threw his hands up, almost feeling embarrassed, “I _know_ you can go through life without connecting to anything, as rootless as the goddamn weeds we pull up. I know you _can_ , but I call bullshit. I do, because I just can’t take this anymore. I—” he swallowed a breath, for a minute losing the cadence of his rant, and of course Spock took advantage.

    “Can’t take _what_ , Leonard? Please define your terms before assuming I can divine what, exactly, you presume I already know.” Spock looked very intently at the plants; no matter what he said, now, it was sure to only irritate Leonard further. Thus he felt no reason to censure himself.

    “My terms?!” Len’s knees protested as he leaned forward, grabbing Spock’s bony arm. “My terms are this, you block of cinder!” It was an ace he kept for moments of sheer desperation, and he tried to use it sparingly; but he felt no qualms about using it now. It was the act of a man who knew he’d already lost.

    Spock, who’d stilled the moment their lips touched, leaned ever so slightly forward, his concession of tacit approval—but he was a moment too late. Len had already moved away, sitting back on his heels.

    "Bones," Spock said, and an intense look always fell across Leonard's face when he invoked that name. It was there now, as inscrutable to Spock as it had been the first time he saw it. "There is no need for such dramatics. The tomatoes are hardly in peril.” It was a weak recovery, but Spock was attempting to regain full faculty. Something about Leonard’s touch overrode all logic; he perpetrated acts of chaos upon Spock, and Spock could not deny that, occasionally, he enjoyed it.

    “I’m not talking about the tomatoes. _Damn_ the tomatoes!” Leonard was still irrational, it seemed. “I’m talking about _us_ right now. We aren’t exactly heroes here, Spock!”

    “What gave you the impression that was our role?” Spock asked, his attempt at remaining neutral wasted. Needing to set himself on the proper path of logic, he began again to focus on the plants.

    “Well, can you think of any other reason we followed Jim so blindly?” Leonard asked, but he too had lost his nerve, digging out weeds again.

    “Our duty was to the mission.” Only, neither of them had believed that for decades. Spock tried again. “What do you believe are the imperatives of a hero?”

    “I…” a hesitant pause which Spock did not comprehend. “Sacrificing himself for those he loves. A sense of a cause bigger than himself.” Leonard chuckled suddenly, another instantaneous change of mood that left Spock reeling. “Always getting the girl.”

    “Indeed.” Spock smiled too, then, a tiny consolation. “Do you regret that role going to the Captain?”

    “Good _lord_ no, but it doesn’t—“ Spock noted a shortening of breath, indicating a faster heart rate. He did not know what to do with this information. “What are we doing here, Spock? Two old men wasting their last days growing plants and readin’ PADDs. We could be doing good out there, saving people like Jim always...” Another pause. Human speech was littered with unnecessary additions. “We know just how much there is left to do, and we’re passing the responsibility on to others?”

_At last_ , Spock thought, _we reach the catalyst_. For all his emotional reactivity, Leonard had a difficult time understanding his own motivations. These small outbursts were not the product of time spent deconstructing his own desires; they were simply an inability to keep quiet any longer. Yet it was the only insight Spock gained into Bones’ emotional turmoil. He was, as Len would say, a meteorologist chasing a tornado; risking his own life for the sake of the unknown.

    “Your nightmares—do they not highlight the good you’ve already done? The sacrifices you have made for those still alive?” Spock did not bother hiding his irritation. “You led the life of a hero on the Enterprise, Bones. The advances you made are innumerable. By all accounts you have led a full life. I do not understand—”

    “Of course you don’t,” Len interrupted, pushing him as he used to. The act should have incensed him, but only made his heart contract painfully. Spock recognized this emotion as nostalgia. “I’m… I’m upset with myself, Spock.” He privately marveled at the ego of humans, but decades among them held his tongue. “Jim, he—well, he lived by what he believed in, and never backed down from that.”

    “An illogical notion,” Spock said automatically, for he knew it was expected.

    “If memory serves, Spock,” Leonard said, “you were just as likely to follow his harebrained schemes.”

    “As that course of action is no longer applicable, I don’t see what relevance it has in this conversation.” It was not quite denial, but Leonard would not tell the difference. After a minute of quiet Spock assumed Leonard was thinking, but when Leonard looked up from the tomatoes he revised his theory to one of suppression.

    “I don’t suppose you’d agree to stuffed tomato and eggplant,” Len said as he rested a hand on Spock’s forearm. The heat seeped through his skin and unsettled him. He supposed that was what Len had been trying for.

    “We have eaten tomatoes twice this week already, Bones,” Spock said, and returned the gesture by grabbing his companion underneath the arms and lifting him easily. When they were both steady, Leonard gazed at him with an emotion Spock understood to be fondness.

    “I guess I’ll have to live with the disappointment.”

    “A skill I believe you’ve already mastered,” Spock said as Leonard wiped away the dirt from his trouser knees.

    Together, slowly, they made their way back home.


End file.
